History:
Traditionally eaten on Saint Stephan day. Canelloni
where filled with the meat that rested from Christmas meal. Nowadays
it's a whole-year meal, basically eaten on cold season, with many versions:
spinach, cod-fish, etc...
Canelloni are little squared pieces of pasta rolled
with meat inside it. Betxamel sauce cover them with some minced cheese.
Canelloni were introduced in catalan cooking by italian
cookers during XVIIIth century.
One of
the oral traditions explain that canelloni and giant "galets"
(see
our escudella video) were eaten as a symbol of victory against a
giant who was destroying sheep farms. In this meal that giant was eaten
in pieces.
Albert
Einstein (pdf
in catalan) visited Barcelona on 1923 invited by the Catalan Studies
Institute. One of the meals he had here was, of course, canelloni. To
be exact, "canelloni a la Fizeau" in honour of that famous
physicist.
